


on every page.

by ohmaggies



Category: The Good Cop
Genre: F/M, Flirting, Friendship/Love, Internal Monologue, Post-Season/Series 01, Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-28 03:13:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16233041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmaggies/pseuds/ohmaggies
Summary: Lieutenant TJ Caruso has solved a couple hundred dozen cases in his time as a detective, if he's being modest, but solving Cora Vasquez is an entirely different job of its own.





	on every page.

**Author's Note:**

> nothing but respect and love for the only f/m couple i love and trust. really though :(( they deserve the world and i've wanted to write something for them since i finished the show a few days ago so here we are.

 

The station is vaguely quiet when it's late, nothing but the flicker of a light in a room a few doors down and the evidence board glaring menacingly in the near dark. Cases have been a slow solve recently, the same photos from weeks ago staring back at him, which is no fault of anyone in the department but TJ; he's been distracted the past few months, by something or someone or…

Well.

Maybe that's the problem. It's been staring him in the face since he met Cora, when she glanced down amused at the hand he offered and shook it, and he tried to pretend he was okay with everything. His dad out of jail, living with him, the fourth anniversary of his mother's dead just around the corner, and a parole officer he couldn't figure out. He knows people, he investigates and looks, and builds a version of them in his head until they match the real thing.

But, Cora is difficult to solve; she's hidden, and intriguing, and too clever to only be the parole officer for someone like Tony “The Tiger” Caruso. TJ saw it the first time they met, the way she held herself and moved and talked, and how every time she was in the room she always managed to catch his attention. It's hard to look away from her then, when she thinks no one's watching and it all slips for a brief moment, and TJ doesn't let him think about it enough to discover what it means.

Until she gets engaged, to someone he couldn't like even if he tried; he tells himself, and his father who isn't listening, that he's sure he'd wouldn't like the guy even if he wasn't dating Cora. It's his smug smile, the heavy way he walks, the uncoolness of his voice-- it grates, it annoys, and it absolutely doesn't make TJ jealous that this is the kind of man Cora has chosen for herself.

It doesn't, or it didn't, but TJ doesn't dwell on it enough to figure it out. He knows himself better than anyone else does and he likes it like that, because it's safe, because he knows how he feels despite not knowing if he misses Vasquez at the station or Cora at his side. Same people, different meaning; he missed his partner, or he missed his friend, or he remembers when she got engaged and his heart sunk in his chest unexplainably, how the cheering and congratulations were too much. And she expected him to go, to sign the papers and send her off with her new husband as though he wouldn't have spent the whole time wishing it was him there.

If they got married-- _if--_ then they'd do it properly, she deserves that much. He remembers the photos of his parents wedding, how happy and bright they looked in their clothes, so unaware of the future to come; happy, though, that's what he focuses on, how happy they are. Him and Cora will do it properly, if they get married; maybe he'll still be her boss and it'll be an infraction, then she'll get that wedding name she wanted.

_Infractions I Have Commited._

Marrying her boss, for one, and if she were still Tony's parole officer then she'd be marrying a client's son. Maybe that's an infraction, maybe he's glad she's a detective now instead of a parole officer because it means he gets to see her more. She's around a lot, like now, the flickering lights a halo around her, her eyes seemingly pressed to something he can't see on the evidence board.

He doesn't need to see her face to know there's more there than appears, a dozen thoughts bouncing around her head. She hasn't mentioned wanting a promotion since the evaluation, since a fake marriage and itchy wedding rings and a bed and a snake, and the way she slept that cemented how he felt more than anything else. He ruined it, with the evaluation, but lying on an official document for the sake of love is one hundred percent an infraction, and he couldn't. He couldn't.

For someone who's spent so many years using boards and pens to keep track of events, he sure has let his emotions and memories get muddled in his brain. That might help, if he wrote it all down and pinpointed when he started feeling this way for her, and why he can't ignore what happened at the Drake. With one bed. With him reading her to sleep. With her asleep. With him falling in love undeniably unlike those things in the past when he could rule it down to jealousy or overestimating of her value as a friend.

He loves her.

Infraction, for sure, but he's cool. He's being cool. Someday he'll be the kind of guy she wants to be with, and until then he'll just be cool. He can do that.

“Cora?” he inquires, and his voice is unpleasantly unused. But cool, casual, and tired beyond belief. It's later than he thought he could get away with without his dad calling, but he could see her out here and he needed to build his courage, just a little. Talking to her is as natural as anything, except the depletion of air in his lungs and the sweat curling his hair and the smudge on his glasses that catches the light all say otherwise.

This is… uncool. So uncool.

“I owe you for the swear jar,” she manages.

She's upset, he's guessing, or as tired as he is. Sleep gets rarer and rarer, and on the rare occasion he finds it, he manages to keep himself awake worrying and falling harder, and hating that this is so hard. His dad knew his mother for two years before he proposed, and TJ and Cora aren't even dating, and they definitely haven't known each other for two years. Even if they had, he couldn't propose, because they aren't dating. They're friends, and co-workers, and he's her boss, and he was so careful in everything except falling for her.

That happened on its own, another unsolvable case that resides next to the file labelled ‘Cora Vasquez.’

“Hey,” she says, and her tone is soft enough to lift his attention from the ground he wasn't aware he was staring at to her warm eyes, the welcome within them.

Everything's hidden with her, he tucks that rediscovery into the back of his mind and gently into an undecided part of her file. He's glad she's here, he wants to say, but words are harder to find than he thought.

“You okay?” Cora presses, as casual as she can manage without sounding as though she's trying to pry.

Five years now. Since his mom. Five whole years and three weeks since, and he ignores that he finds it hard to bring up even with his dad, who would understand more than anyone else how it feels. Except Cora, because she's lived more years without her mom than with, and TJ's stomach twists and turns at the thought of ever being able to say that about himself and his own mother. She would've liked Cora, he thinks, and clears his throat as Cora raises a subtle eyebrow at him.

He swallows, aware of how messy he probably looks under this dim lighting. His eyes hurt, his vision blurs, but he still manages to make eye contact with her and say, “Tired.” He smiles, polite, and ducks his head as he allows his  eyes to shut for a second, ignoring her gaze very obviously following him. When he lifts his face to hers, faux smile still present, her features are simply unconvinced, and once he looks at her he finds it hard to look away. “You?”

She's concerned, one of her hands gently tapping well maintained fingernails against the desk she's leaning on, eyes refocused on the evidence board as if hoping to convince him that she hasn't been distracted at all by whatever thoughts are floating around her head. He hopes, quietly, that they're similar to his, and it doesn't have to happen fast-- them-- but he wants it to. She's a good detective, one of the best, and she'll get that promotion with or without a good evaluation. He wants her to stay, despite her lack of respect for authority, or more specifically him.

He doesn't want her to get promoted. A promotion means her going somewhere else, and where she is right now is where he wants her for the rest of his life. She's with him, always with him, and he can't imagine having to readjust to someone else being where he's grown accustomed to her being. She has no idea, really, the way he felt when he called them a family and she leaned into him, and the way he retreated to his desk while she showed the others her ring, or how perfect being married to her felt.

It wasn't fake to the people there, to the marriage counselor, even if it was fake for them. He loves Cora, how could he not, and he barely drags himself out of his thoughts to notice she hasn't yet replied. There's something on her mind, but this isn't the usual way she'd announce it. Her usual MO is heavy steps, fast and heavy, and her jacket tossed over her desk or chair as she sits, and how panicked his heart feels deep within his chest when he sees it.

He worries about her and he wants her to be happy because it's what she deserves, but he thinks about it too much and decides that her being happy almost has to be with him. Infraction or not, promotion or not… they deserve some good, or she does, at least. He wants that for her, and with her. Saying it and thinking it, however, are very different things.

“... Cora?” he repeats, breath in his throat. “You okay?”

“Tired,” she smiles, and it's as insincere as his was only moments before.

They _are_ tired, he knows that. It's been a long few weeks and months, and the cases are piling up more than they can keep up with, and TJ has tried to focus on his work but something almost always brings his thoughts to her. He's tried telling his dad, tried asking for advice in his own way by bringing it up and leaving it open ended, but Tony has other things on his mind. Big, important things, TJ guesses, that are more valuable to Tony than his son's lovelife. Or lack thereof.

“You’re allowed to go home, Detective Vasquez,” he asserts, and Cora smiles at him.

“Is that an order, Caruso?” she says, and the upwards quirk at the corner of her lips is contagious. “What about you?” she asks, after a half minute passes and he doesn't reply in lieu of leaning carefully against her desk. The expression on her face is too serious for his liking, worsened by the dull lighting. “Heading home?”

“Trying to avoid it, actually,” he admits, and pins his attention to the suspect photos in front of Cora. It's better than seeing her face, than noticing the way she finds it hard to disguise her emotions when she's let her guard down. She does that around him a lot, he's noted, but it's hard knowing it's only when they're alone like this; when the other chairs are cleared out and the only people left are them, both staying to keep away from whatever's out there.

He's avoiding sleep, because he knows it won't find him easy and he'd rather be here killing himself with his thoughts than in bed in the dark. At least here he's someone, and Cora's here, and she doesn't completely understand but it's nice being around her. Comforting. Warm. _Right_.

Maybe that's what love is, TJ thinks, and shakes his head gently to force the thought away.

The smudge on his glasses is still there. But, he's been breathing fine for the past few minutes and she's talking to him, so that's a pretty good sign that things are okay now. She stopped being angry a few days after the evaluation but things were tense, and she was more willing to do things she thought would annoy him just for the sake of annoying him. It worked, though he'd never admit it to her.

Besides, she already knows. She has him all figured out, or appears as if she does; it's terrifying and endearing all in one.

“You admitting to being a workaholic, Caruso?” Cora, hands gripping the edge of Ryan's desk as she leans against it even more.

“Yeah, well… would it make you feel better? If I told you I'd rather be here?” he tries, the light catching his eyes painfully.

“No, I just wanted to hear you say it.” She doesn't smile or laugh, just catches his gaze and holds it as if she knows he won't be able to look away from her. She has him all figured out, and he loves her for it and also without it. He just loves her. At this point, he's not sure he knows how not to, or if he could just as easily wake up one day and not love her; something about it feels permanent, and he hopes it is.

“Well played, detective,” he offers, and she easily takes it.

“Thanks, partner.”

And she smiles. And outside dawn is beginning. The rising sun outside catches her, and it hits TJ briefly that she's stunning. Undeniably so. The sunrise paints her in orange and pinks, a symphony of colours that are now his favourite, and she seems so unaware of how fast his heart is beating in his chest or how shaky his hands are at his side's.

He's cool, so cool. He's definitely cool.

So cool that his voice barely catches when he says, “You should take the day off. Get some sleep.”

“I just… can't stop thinking about this case, Caruso. It's keeping me awake. Every night.”

“Life of a detective,” he jokes, and Cora laughs as if it's funny. It's not, really. She thought it was, though, and he wants to make her laugh like that forever, just to hear it, just to see the way her smile brightens and widens. He puts that into the case file he keeps for her, tucked away into a part of his brain for sometime later, when he thinks too hard about all this uncertainty. For when it keeps him awake, the case of Cora Vasquez, and he'll recall how she looked leaning against Ryan's desk, the sunrise making art of her profile.

She's off limits, he's her boss, so he forces himself to look away. The memory is already printed in his mind, though, and he hopes soon he'll look back on it and know what she was thinking then. If she really couldn't sleep because of the case, or because of him, or if she spent the night sitting outside his office trying to sort through all the things she knows about him-- if it's because she loves him, or because she's trying to figure out a way to tell him she doesn't feel the same.

TJ clears his throat, unintentionally keeping Cora's attention on him. His body is heavy and exhausted, but his mind is awake enough to make up for the lack of sleep he's been getting. Thanks to Cora, and the way she's staring at him that he can't read; she doesn't look away when he meets her gaze, curiosity thick in his eyes. She smiles, barely but still somewhat there, and he flickers his attention to her lips, to the gentle curves of her near invisible grin.

He smiles back, with his mouth and his eyes, and the part of his mind that is still dedicated to committing this to memory. 

"Goodnight, Cora," he says, hoping maybe she'll get up and go home. But, she doesn't. Just holds her gaze on him as if she can't look away, as if it's hard for her to look anywhere else. It reminds him of three weeks ago, of a foreign movie in a foreign language, with her beside him the most familiar thing in the room; it reminds him that he loves her, probably. 

A foreign film in a foreign language, the words: _I am, and will be, in the next world, the one who loved you with all his soul._


End file.
